There is trouble on the list about "head/heart" postings.
(Unless someone disputes it I will assume that "heart"
is the equivalent of "soul" for purposes of this posting.)
The trouble is that I sense that many who need to struggle
and share their struggles with this issue are ignoring it.
I'd like to make a practical suggestion--maybe I should call
it a typographical suggestion--too keep this thread open
when ignoring it will prevent it from gaining a critical mass.
Then we will lose it, and the hearts will close again.
My suggestion is based on my idea of "Boundarying Operation,"
where "Boundarying" is defined as opening/closing and the
typographical construction "/" denotes the relationship of
complementarity, as in Yin/Yang. The terms "Opening" and
"Closing" are primitive terms undefined within this framework.
"Opening" and "Closing" are not mere metaphors, they are, perhaps
"meta-metaphors" in the same sense that "true" and "false" are.
Let "posting with your head" be the same as "closing," closing
in the sense that you are trying to draw boundary distinctions
which are important issues about relevant subjects. Closing is
good: It creates bits of information by drawing distinctions.
Let "posting with your heart" be the same as "opening," opening
because you are dissolving a boundary distinction which no longer
matters to you, like the distinction between poster and his/her
intended audience which once protected the poster's vulnerability.
Opening is good: It creates "tibs" of information by allowing
the flow to play (play is another serious word for "opening")
between poster and postee, thus forgiving boundarying distinctions.
Which is of higher value, then, opening OR closing, posting from
the head or posting from the heart? That is like asking which is
of higher value, Yin-ing or Yang-ing? The answer is: How can Yin
be of higher value than Yang when Yin/Yang autonomously (that is,
without external cause) transform themseves into their opposites,
Yang/Yin. The truth, if one must have one, is in the flipping.
How does this this "flippant truth" apply to LO11711 et. seq.?
My proposal is to adopt a boundarying rule. But boundaries are
made of information and thus have no dimensionality in space.
I propose a marker of a boundary, as an arbitrary local symbol
which says: Hey! "Im shifting right now to a Heart Paradigm/
Hey! Im shifting right now to a Head paradigm"
I have looked all over my computer keyboard for an appropriate or
somehow poetic typographical paradigm-flipping marker and I don't
know one.(He who knows does not speak/He who speaks does not know)
If this heart/head paradigm shift convention is worth its salt,
then someone else will second this motion. Let them be empowered
to select a flipping convention mark and I promise to abide by it.
I can offer an ostensive (point to) definition of head/heart
flipping and the power of it that touched me. A few days back
Ian did a posting which flipped back and forth between the utter
openness of self doubt ("Like why am I even writing this?") and
the closedness of self assertion of the boundarying distinction
of what he knew to be true. It was the flipping back and forth
that touched me, not the opening (constant opening can get gushy),
not the closing (constant closing can get imperiously boring),
but the flipping. I trusted his flipping, I was enlivened by it.
I believe that between every brilliant closing head-sentence in
any posting there lurks a vulnerable opening heart-sentence. And,
between every opening heart-sentence there lurks a head-sentence.
I can't always tell when they head/heart or heart/head paradigm
flipping happens. But the poster, in touch with his or her state
of the moment CAN tell, or at least can try to, and let us know
that the Bit/Tib complementarity event has taken place. I hope
this artificial convention proposal will heep the thread alive
for some and make it come alove for others in a gentle way.
(I suddenly got thiis "rush": "Jim you are getting attached to your
own self-proclaimed brilliance." The B'ahai High Council has a
marvelous rule: Once you make a contribution it is No Longer Yours
Jim Durkin
Collaboration Technologies
Kensington, CA 94707
colabtek@vdn.com
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>